Crop breeding programs are setting an example for how to examine and improve their work – while embedding this process into organizational culture. It's all to better meet the needs of their customers, namely breeders, farmers and donors. This blog walks through the process, and examines a CGIAR rice breeding case study from IRRI.
By Gustavo Teixeira, Theresa Heitman and Adam Hunt
Through “sharing excellence” across programs and geographies, crop breeders are ready to deliver higher rates of genetic gain and varietal turnover.
New series of manuals developed by EiB is a practical guide to designing crossing, evaluation and selection strategies, and developing performance indicators such as genetic gain and heritability.
How can breeders and other research programs continually improve their processes and products? And how can they ensure they keep a customer focus at the centre of their work?
Working with partners across CGIAR and externally to catalyze change, CGIAR Excellence in Breeding has also adapted its approaches. And it has been adding and reallocating some key talent.
High-impact Rice Breeding in East and West Africa (Hi-Rice) tackles one of the sources of low rice productivity: a lack of high performing, locally adapted varieties.
Plant breeders produce new varieties for their customers: farmers. To predict what kinds of new varieties are likely to offer significant benefits to farmers, breeders may turn to their customers to evaluate which characteristics might make a new variety more acceptable.
In February, the CGIAR Excellence in Breeding (EiB) Platform assessed breeding operations and phenotyping capacity at five CGIAR and national crop research stations in West Africa.
